CITY WHISPERS: Are Britain’s fattest cats on a monetary diet? That’s what you might conclude after reading the FTSE 100 heavyweight annual reports
Are Britain’s fattest cats on a monetary diet? That’s what you might conclude after leafing through the annual reports of several FTSE 100 heavyweights.
Last week, Endeavor Mining boss Sebastien de Montessus – crowned the highest paid boss in The Mail on Sunday’s Fat Cat Files 2022 report – saw his pay more than halve to around £9million . He had received £18.8million the previous year.
AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot, second highest paid in the Fat Cat Files, took home £15.3million.
Calm before the storm: Are Britain’s fattest cats on a money diet?
While de Montessus is on an emergency diet, Soriot is less strict with his drinking, as his salary has fallen only slightly from the £15.7million he earned in 2021.
Albert Manifold, head of building materials company CRH, third on the list, saw his pay fall by 13% to £10.7million.
Perhaps he is hoping for a favorable exchange rate with the dollar, with his decision to move CRH’s stock exchange listing from London to New York.
Smiles everywhere for climate activists
Eco-activists have something to smile about. After a meteoric rally in 2022, coal stocks in London have fallen so far this year.
MC Mining has more than halved its value and Thungela Resources – spun off from Anglo American last year – is down nearly a third.
Thermal coal prices are at their lowest since January 2022.
Drax and EDF have ruled out keeping their backup coal plants going into next winter, so it looks like Britain won’t be raising King Coal again either.
Hit the wrong note at the signature
After days of wall-to-wall banking news, it’s easy to forget that US lender Signature Bank collapsed just a week ago.
Even more memorable are the music videos Signature’s management team made about themselves.
These videos — including a reimagining of Katy Perry’s song Firework promoting Signature — and comedy sketches are likely etched in the memories of anyone who has had to watch them.
Yes, these types of projects can be fun for some, but they would have been expensive and hard not to find thrilling.
They give off a more Dunder Mifflin energy, from the American version of The Office, than that of a bank with 91 billion pounds of assets at the end of 2022.
Iceland’s conservative candidate is silent on corporate tariffs
Iceland boss Richard Walker was eerily quiet after Jeremy Hunt’s failure last week to tackle the corporate rate burden strangling the high street.
Usually a prominent campaigner for an overhaul of the dreaded Shops Tax, Walker declined to comment after the Chancellor swept away business rates in his inaugural budget.
The Icelandic heir could have pretended to be distracted as he prepares to climb Everest next month.
But he had another incentive to stay schtum – he is an endorsed Tory candidate hoping to contest a seat in the next election.
“I’m keeping my head down for now so CCHQ is happy,” he was told by Whispers.
Good luck with that…
